Sunday 16th – Monday 17th June 2019 This tour starts with me meeting the tourees at Durham railway station at 16:00. From here our coach takes us to our hotel – Lumley Castle. Originally a manor house, in 1389 Sir Ralf Lumley received permission from the Prince Bishop of Durham to convert it into a castle. Unfortunately Sir Ralf was executed in 1400 after a failed coup to overthrow Henry IV and Lumley Castle was subsequently confiscated by the crown, but it was returned to the Lumley family in 1421. In the early 1800s the castle came under the ownership of the Bishop of Durham after he had given his home, Durham Castle, to the newly created University of Durham. Later, Lumley Castle became a hall of residence for the university. The university sold the castle in the 1960s to fund the development of new halls of residence in the city. In 1976 it was established as a hotel with great historical character. My room, reached by a typical medieval spiral staircase – [see video of the day, below] – was the window seen top right in the above picture and featuring a four poster bed, pull cord light switches and rope ties for the curtains. Monday started with a 15 minute coach journey into Durham where we picked up Jan, our local blue badge guide. Jan and Eric, our coach driver, gave us a 30 minute coach tour around the outer part of Durham where we saw the river, […]